Love it or hate it, Interstate 35 is a presence that is difficult to ignore. As part of America's major interstate highway system, I-35 has left an indelible impact on the city of Waco, prompting dramatic shifts in Waco's economy, neighborhoods, and aesthetic landscape.

While construction on I-35 did not start until 1957, the beginnings of this interstate system trace back to 1919 when Dwight D. Eisenhower, then a young lieutenant colonel, took part in a cross-country military convoy. The sixty-two-day haul covered 3,242 miles of dirt roads, ditches, and all-but-impassable terrain and convinced Eisenhower of the need for federal investment in building and maintaining adequate roads. The future politician's plan for a national highway system crystalized after he observed the German Autobahn system while stationed in Europe during World War II. In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act. The proposed interstate highway system, he argued, would create thousands of jobs, make roads safer and routes more efficient, and allow for quick transport of people and resources in the wake of a nuclear attack. The act allowed for the construction of a 41,000-mile system of highways and earmarked $26 billion in federal aid to cover 90 percent of construction costs, to which individual states were expected to contribute the remaining amount.

One such stretch of highway was the proposed Interstate 35, which would run from Texas to Minnesota, passing through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa along the way. The commission appointed to oversee construction through Waco aimed to take into consideration the effect that highway placement would have on the city's future growth and prosperity. While some lobbied for the building up of the pre-existing route on La Salle Avenue, the commission settled on a mid-city route for the interstate. Many believed that this mid-city route would rejuvenate property values along the thoroughfare, an appealing idea as downtown Waco still reeled from the destructive tornado that tore through the area in May 1953. Planners hoped the $17 million mid-city expressway would alleviate traffic congestion as the straightest route from Potts Interchange-now the intersection of Waco Drive and Highway 77-to Waco's traffic circle. One local newspaper hailed the "graceful expanse" as "a sight to the eyes of every traffic-harried motorist who journeys north to Dallas or South to San Antonio."

The mid-city route, however, would displace many homes and businesses along the proposed path. The Texas Highway Commission began informing residents and business owners in the interstate's path of the upcoming construction plans. Not all were pleased. While the city provided affected residents and businesses with the funds to relocate, the new highway veritably erased several historic neighborhoods and disrupted deep-rooted communities.

Construction of I-35 officially began in South Waco in 1962, when building crews began the first of eight sections. The work of planning, staging, and construction, however, stretched on for several years. The subsequent seven sections were offered to independent contractors and were completed incrementally until construction finally ceased in 1972. Together, the eight contracts totaled a sum of $24,906,000. Initially, experts predicted that the new I-35 would see 68,000 vehicles a day by 1975. While the number of cars per day would later rise, the number hovered around 60,000 during the interstate's first decade, in part due to rising gas prices during the 1970s. Today, the portion of I-35 just north of Waco's traffic circle carries 138,689 cars per day.

New plans to widen the eight-mile stretch of I-35 within Loop 340 are currently slated to begin in 2019. Although the interstate has brought significant change to the communities along its path, I-35's perennial construction has proven to be a constant for Central Texas drivers since the highway's inception.

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Although born of humble beginnings, Greater Ebenezer Baptist Church has been lifting Wacoans up in worship for over a century.

The church now known as Greater Ebenezer Baptist began as Oak Street Baptist Church in East Waco in 1915, when Rev. J. S. A. Trowser organized a church of eleven members at a little house at 117 Oak Street, right next to an Elm Street cotton gin where several members worked. The Oak Street Baptist Church grew and by 1918, was able to pay Trowser a salary of $17.50 a week.

In 1924, the church was renamed Ebenezer Baptist Church as it moved to Dutton Street and began growing one lot at a time as the congregation could afford. Around 1940, Trowser passed the pulpit to the Rev. J. E. Deckard, who served seven years. Since then, seven other pastors have led the church.

Before the construction of I-35, Dutton Avenue served as the main drag and the mostly unpaved streets around it were packed with small houses and corner stores. Families would walk to church from the South Waco neighborhood, joining others who had walked from farther reaches of Waco or even country towns such as Downsville. Dressed in their Sunday best, they would settle in for an entire day of singing, preaching, and fellowship.

Many congregants still remember every corner of that old wood-frame church building, which was built in 1924, substantially renovated in 1940, and wrapped in brick in 1969. Notable for its red windows—bought at a time when stained glass was too expensive for a working-class congregation—it was razed to make way for the new million-dollar building, complete with stained glass.

The church’s current pastor, Rev. Kerry Burkley, a Truett Seminary graduate who also is program director of the Waco Children’s Advocacy Center, is the son of a Central Texas minister. He remembers coming to Greater Ebenezer when his father was a guest preacher there and sensing the history and community of the church. He said the church maintains a strong sense of community despite the decline of the adjacent neighborhood.

Congregants saw a superhighway built at their doorstep in the 1960s, and later the orange stakes on the front lawn marking I-35’s expansion area. Much of the land around the church increasingly became owned by developers. In recent years, the church has turned away inquiries from real estate buyers interested in new construction on the corner.

In the summer of 2015, the church celebrated its centennial with a multi-day revival. Despite the barrage of change around the church, the values of Greater Ebenezer remain largely similar to those of the original institution founded by hard-working East Wacoans over a century ago. The church retains a strong commitment to serving as a center of worship and community, being a “stone of help for people.”

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Faced with decreased business and enormous renovation costs, the brothers decided to sell the restaurant in 1986. David Tinsley, a well-known Texan restaurateur, purchased the Elite Café for approximately $1.3 million and refurbished the restaurant with help from his managing partner, Sammy Citrano. Though the pair recognized the risk in attempting to revive the Elite, they decided to purchase the café and the neighboring burger joint, Health Camp, out of a sentimental attachment to the history of Waco. In 1987, the restaurant reopened with a 1950s theme, including a 1956 baby-blue Chevorlet sitting in front of the restaurant.

In 1993, Citrano left the Elite in order to run his own restaurant, becoming the head of George’s, another Waco favorite. Before leaving the Elite, Citrano recommended that Tinsley trace the history of the café through its photographs and records. In 1996, a historical marker commemorating the restaurant’s contribution to the city was placed at its location on the circle. However, business declined following Citrano’s departure, and in 1999 Tinsley sold the rights to the Elite Café to the Ford Restaurant Group. The Elite Café closed for renovations yet again.

For the next several years, the Elite Café stood empty. In 2003, the Ford Group completed renovations restoring the restaurant to its original feel. The renovations preserved the Spanish-style exterior and honored the café’s history by lining the walls with photographs from its past. The restaurant reopened with a new name: the Elite Circle Grille. For a time, the new owners experimented with a more upscale menu but soon returned to the restaurant’s staples of chicken-fried steak, burgers, and sandwiches.

Elite Circle Grille closed its doors in February 2016, but was purchased several months later by Fixer Upper’s Chip and Joanna Gaines. The couple auctioned off the contents of the restaurant to benefit Mission Waco’s Jubilee Food Market, then began renovations. Because the building was recognized as a historical landmark twenty years ago, efforts have been made to ensure that original character of the building remains intact. The re-envisioned restaurant, named Magnolia Table, opened for business in February 2018. It offers an assortment of breakfast and brunch items on its menu, including its popular buttermilk biscuits—made from a recipie that took Joanna Gaines over a year to develop.

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Fort Fisher is an excellent example of how a historical site can be reimagined to fit contemporary needs. Comprised of a few shanties in the mid nineteenth century, more than 130 years later the Waco Chamber of Commerce breathed new life into the fading historical memory of Fort Fisher by transforming the site into an attractive tourist destination on Interstate 35.

In 1837, Colonel William S. Fisher, secretary of war for the Republic of Texas, ordered a company of thirty-eight Texas Rangers to build a small fort near the site of a deserted Waco Indian Village. Hastily constructed, the encampment did not resemble a fort so much as a humble grouping of temporary shelters. After a few weeks, Colonel Fisher deemed the site to be too remote for sustained use and commanded the Rangers to abandon it. In perhaps mock tribute to the man behind the short-lived endeavor, the Rangers christened the vacated post Fort Fisher. It remained a mere footnote in Waco’s history for more than a century.

  The arrival of Interstate 35 in the early 1960s led to the repurposing of the memory of Fort Fisher to help develop tourism as well as a functioning center of law and order. Hoping to entice passing motorists to stop in Waco, the Waco Chamber of Commerce’s Publicity Committee considered a myriad of proposals for a roadside attraction. In 1963, Waco businessman and gifted salesman James R. LeBlond put forward the idea of a revived Fort Fisher. Located roughly within the vicinity of the original camp at the west end of the Interstate 35 bridge across the Brazos, the “new” Fort Fisher would be a multipurpose facility with space allotted for a tourist information center, the headquarters of Texas Rangers Company F, and a small museum to display Ranger memorabilia. Intrigued by LeBlond’s pitch, the Waco Chamber of Commerce approved the formation of a special Fort Fisher Committee. Along with LeBlond, notable members of the committee included Texas Ranger Captain Clint Peoples, historian and former mayor of Waco Roger N. Conger, and publisher Robert E. Davis. The committee faced a distinct challenge in that it had to obtain not only municipal approval for the project but permission from Colonel Homer Garrison, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, to relocate Texas Rangers Company F to the site. Fortunately for the committee, Colonel Garrison consented to the project. In 1967 the Waco City Council approved the construction of the 1 ½ acre Fort Fisher complex on a budget of $125,000. It would be situated within a larger thirty-five acre Fort Fisher Park managed by Waco’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Fort Fisher’s October 25, 1968 dedication ceremony drew not only interested locals but numerous active duty and retired Texas Rangers. Dignitaries such as Chief United States Marshal James McShane and the director of the Department of Public Safety, W. E. (Pat) Speir, were in attendance. Perhaps most exciting to the crowd was the presence of popular Gunsmoke actor James Arness who lent a little Hollywood star power to the occasion.

While the revived Fort Fisher bore its predecessor’s name, it was a far cry from the hurriedly assembled quarters of the original inhabitants. Architect David Carnahan designed Fort Fisher’s buildings to resemble authentic log cabins from the early 1880s. Some of the period detail on Fort Fisher’s two buildings included large stone fireplaces, covered front porches, and wooden shutters with bars or straps covering the windows. The Homer Garrison Jr. museum gallery helped reinforce this period feel as it exhibited an extensive collection of early Ranger armaments and uniforms. The buildings of Fort Fisher still stand but the site is now known as the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

With Fort Fisher's revival and repurposing as a tourist destination and law enforcement center, Waco made a civic statement to visitors and denizens alike, that the city was not only an appealing stop alongside the interstate but an urban center in which law and order were respected in the tumultuous late 1960s.

Though designed to appeal to visitors, the construction of Fort Fisher also caused a local impact that extended beyond tourism and statements about law and order. When Waco decided to erect Fort Fisher, it did so on land associated with First Street Cemetery. The cemetery—the oldest in the city—suffered from poor record keeping and constant neglect; making it ideal for development. Building Fort Fisher meant relocating some of the cemetery’s headstones and remains. However, expansion of Fort Fisher in 2007 unearthed remains and showed only the transfer of headstones occurred in the 1960s. The revelation sparked scholarly and community endeavors over the next decade. Fort Fisher’s connection to the land on which it was developed may prove as instructive to tourists and Wacoans as what they find in its museum.

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